This invention relates to the manufacture of carbon fibre preforms such as are used for the manufacture of carbon-carbon composites and particularly for the manufacture of articles such as carbon brake discs made from such materials.
It is customary in the manufacture of carbon brake discs by the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method to compress a stack of layers of carbon fibre fabric in a suitable jig before loading the stack, in the jig, into the CVD furnace. The jig requires time to assemble and takes up valuable space in the furnace, and one object of the present invention is to provide an improved method for making a free-standing carbon fibre preform which does not require a jig.